1. Field
The present disclosure relates to golf scoring systems, and particularly to a scoring system for golf tournaments.
2. Description of Related Art
In competitions, such as golf, where there are many teams and/or many players, all of the scores of the individual players need to be recorded and compared to determine the winner and the order of finish. In addition, many golf competitions use the notion of handicapping so that teams/players of unequal ability can fairly compete against one another. In order to do that, scorecards must be prepared in advance by an administrator who has knowledge of the handicaps of all of the teams and players and can take into account their differences in ability. Some competitions have hundreds of competitors and it is not only extremely time consuming to prepare the scorecards, but it is error prone as well. To compound the problems, competitions often have a number of rounds of play and this will be an ongoing task for the administrator, as each round of play will need new fully prepared scorecards.
In addition to preparing the scorecards in advance of each of the many rounds of competition, the administrator must take the finished scorecards from each round and calculate the results. This process of calculating scores and match outcomes to update the results is as well very time consuming and again is very error prone.
An example to show the amount of work required would be a golf tournament referred to as a Member-Member or a Member-Guest tournament, for example. In this format, one team is typically made up of 2 players, and 6 teams will make up a group known as a flight. Each team will play each of the other 5 teams in their flight once. One team against another is considered one match, and it consists of 9 holes of match play. In match play, for each hole, the best net score of two teammates is compared against the best net score of the two opponents. The lowest score wins the hole. The winning team is the team that wins the most holes. Points are assigned after each match, and the winner of the flight will be the team with the most points after playing all 5 matches. It is common to have 14 flights and so there can easily be 168 players in the tournament. There will also be a main prize as to which of the 14 flight winners had the most points.
In order to play in this format, the administrator will have to prepare a large number of scorecards. To prepare just one scorecard, the administrator will typically carry out a number of manual steps. Referring to FIG. 1, an exemplary scorecard 100 of the prior art is illustrated. In this example, a flight number 102, which in this example is “FLIGHT 10” is recorded on the scorecard 100. The team numbers 104 for the flight are recorded, which in this example are shown as “TEAM 4” and “TEAM 6.” The names of the players 106 are recorded on the scorecard 100. The handicap values 108 are recorded next to the respective name of each player 106.
The lowest handicap of the players is recorded, which in this example corresponds to the value “4” adjacent to the player “John B.” The lowest handicap “4” is subtracted from the next lowest player, which in this example the indicated handicap of “9” adjacent “Mike D.” The result of the subtraction represents the number of ‘strokes’ that the second lowest handicap player “Mike D.” will receive from the best player “John D.” In this example, “Mike D” receives “5” strokes, and a check mark is placed in each box representing the number of strokes being received by that player on that hole. This exercise is carried out for each of the players 106. In this example, “Dave M” receives 8 strokes and “Bob J” receives 11 strokes.
A skilled administrator can typically prepare one scorecard in about 1.5 minutes. To complete the first round for all teams, this process will be need to be performed 3 times per flight and since there are 14 flights, 42 scorecards need to be prepared. This will then be repeated 4 more times for the remaining rounds, and therefore a total of 210 scorecards need to be prepared for the tournament. This requires about 315 minutes, or over 5 hours. While attempts have been made to automate this process, the attempts are typically limited to the printing of the scorecard itself. Additionally, these systems are generally not able to address issues related to four-point league play that require two handicaps per player to be complete.
When a match is completed, the scorecard is handed to the administrator. The administrator must now verify that the team claiming to win actually did defeat their opponent, and that the margin of victory is correct. This is important because more points are awarded for a large margin of victory while fewer points are awarded for winning by only one stroke. At this time the points now need to be recorded. This post match process is also very time consuming and is error prone. Not only that, but in a typical tournament based on the example above, this scoring recording process could be repeated 210 times over a 2 day period.
In addition to this form of competition, there is another golf competition, commonly referred to as “Skins” In the Skins game, every scorecard 100 is examined for “birdies” or “eagles”, as those terms are generally understood by one of skill in the art with respect to the game of golf. With many competitors and many scorecards, there will be many holes under par. If there are one or two birdies on a hole, then that hole is a Skin, and money will be earned. As soon as there are three or more birdies on a hole, it is not a Skin. This can be a difficult part of the administrator's job. Each scorecard has to be searched for birdies. The Skins “pot” needs to be divided up based on the results of the scoring, and with a large number of players, this can again be very difficult and error prone. These types of competitions, bets or wagers will generally be referred to herein as “parts” of a golf match or “competition parts” of a golf match.
The previous example showed how much work is required to manage the scoring for a 2-day tournament. In some events, this process can be spread out over a number of weeks. A common example of this would be a golf league where teams compete against each other by playing once per week for a golf season. As an example, it would be common for 10 teams to compete by playing the other 9 teams twice each for a total of 18 weeks. Each team consists of 6 players where each player is ranked A to F with A being the best player on that team. In a given week, players A and B of one team will play the opposing team's A and B players. These 4 players will make up one foursome, with 2 players from each team and will need scorecards for that match. Players C and D of each team will be another foursome, as will players E and F of each team.
In these types of events, there can be a total of 4 parts to one match. Each part is worth one point, and this is how they are assigned, assuming that Team 1 is playing Team 2 on a specific week:
Part 1: One point is assigned for the match play winner of Team 1 Player A and Player B against Team 2 Player A and Player B. A tie gives ½ point for each team.
Part 2: One point is assigned for the match play winner of Team 1 Player A against Team 2 Player A. A tie gives ½ point for each player.
Part 3: One point is assigned for the match play winner of Team 1 Player B against Team 2 Player B. A tie gives ½ point for each player.
Part 4: One point is assigned for the aggregate play winner of Team 1 Player A and Player B against Team 2 Player A and Player B. Aggregate play means counting the total strokes for both players of a team and subtracting their handicaps. The aggregate score of Team 1 is compared against the aggregate score of Team 2, and a tie gives ½ point for each team.
In the points description above, it referred to Players A and B. However, the same point description also applies to Players C and D, as well as to Players E and F in their respective matches. Therefore, there are 4 possible points in the A and B match, 4 possible points in the C and D match, and 4 possible points in the E and F match. This allows a total of 12 possible points for the entire team.
In order to play in this format, a special scorecard needs to be created. On this scorecard, all 14 steps outlined in the previous example must be performed, and this is only to create the two-on-two match play format as described in Part 1 above. For Part 2, the handicap calculations and stroke adjustments described above need to be performed relative to the two A Players of both teams. This results in more check marks on the scorecard. For Part 3, the handicap calculations and stroke adjustments are performed relative to the two B Players of both teams. It should be noted that it is considered difficult to do on one scorecard, and that a choice is usually made to put the marks for Parts 2 and 3 and not add the marks for Part 1 at all. Part 4 does not require extra effort before the match.
A skilled administrator could prepare one scorecard is about 2 minutes, and this would require 3 scorecards to handle the match between Team 1 and Team 2. Ten teams results in 5 matches per week with 3 scorecards per match. Therefore 15 scorecards are needed per week and this requires about 30 minutes for the administrator. For an 18 week season, this would take 540 minutes, or 9 hours, of the administrator's time. This is not only a large amount of time, but it is error prone as well. To compound the problem, there are many weeks where a player informs the administrator only hours before the match that he cannot make it that day. In this case, a substitute player is found. However, when this occurs, the original scorecard that was prepared is useless and a new one must be made using the handicap of the substitute. This is very difficult for the administrator who may have tried to fill out the scorecards days ahead.
When a foursome finishes, the scorecard is handed to the administrator. During the match, the players would have tried to determine the status as they played each hole. The two Parts for one-on-one match play are usually correct, but the two-on-two match play Part and the total score Part are usually not calculated correctly. Therefore, most players do not know the status of all of the four Parts when they finish playing, and they do not get the results right away. The administrator is now responsible to go through the scorecards and calculate the results, and this process will not be undertaken at the time of the event. Players will usually receive the completed results days later when the administrator finishes looking at all of the scorecards.
After calculating the results of each weekly match by working on 15 scorecards, the administrator must now tally up all of the points for the season and record the results. In addition, each of the 60 player's handicaps must be recalculated based on how they just played. This post-match process is again very time consuming and is error prone. Not only that, but it needs to be completed for each of 18 weeks. This means that the administrator will work on 270 scorecards and will calculate and then enter 1080 scores for the players in this league.
In certain electronic scoring systems, the process for entering scores can be cumbersome and will typically involve a number of steps and entries. When on the golf course, these processes can be cumbersome. It would be advantageous to be able to enter scores directly into for example a smartphone, with a minimal number of steps and user inputs.
In other electronic scoring systems, the result data is not immediately displayed. Typically, one has to navigate through one or more screens to get to a result screen. It would be advantageous to be able to have the individual, team and match results readily displayed with a minimum of navigation.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a substantially automated golf score recording and scoring system that addresses at least some of the problems identified above.